Was Will Norton Ever Found After the Joplin Tornado? His Dad Broke His Arm Trying to Save Him
Jason Pham
William Richard Norton had just graduated from high school when he was one of the 161 people who were killed by one of the deadliest tornados to wreck havoc in the United States.
Will, a esident and YouTuber from Joplin, Missouri, was one of the first people to be reported missing after a multivortex EF5 tornado struck the city and caused widespread devastation across the area.
Will—who ran a comedy YouTube channel under the handle @willdabeast88883333—went missing on May 22, 2011, hours after he graduated from Joplin High School. As he was driving home from the graduation with his father, Mark, a tornado struck Will’s car. Will and Mark were on the phone with his sister, Sara, and his mom, Trish, who heard the moment the tornado made contact with the vehicle. After the tornado hit his car, Will was pulled through the sunroof of his Hummer and thrown into a nearby pond. Mark, for his part, suffered severe injuries and was taken to the hospital, where he survived.
Was Will Norton ever found after the Joplin Tornado?
After the tornado, Will was put on a list of hundreds of other missing people from Joplin. He was found dead seven days later at the same pond he landed in on May 29, 2011. Following his death, many fans and Joplin residents paid tribute to Will. A baseball field in the city was named the Will Norton Miracle Field and tattoo artist Kat Von D—whom Will was a fan of—honored him with a sketch. “In loving memory of Will Norton,” the sketch read.
Two years before his death, Will shaed a cryptic YouTube video titled “I Nearly Died!” in May 2009 whee he explained that was caught in a powerful thunderstorm and had to seek protection inside of a gym. His last YouTube video was uploaded in March 2011.
In an interview with local news station KSHB in 2016, Mark explained how, if he and Will had driven through the area where the tornado struck sooner, his son would still be alive. “If we had been five seconds sooner, we would have been past it,” he said.
Mark went on to recall how he and Will were less than a minute from their home when the tornado hit. “As he was pulling over, you know, stopping the vehicle, I can remember him praying and reciting scripture,” Norton said. “I can remember thinking, ‘gosh, he is so scared,’ and I had my arm on him.”
“During that time, all of the windows are blowing out, and there were pieces of plumbing and junk and steel going through the car, and it was picking us up like three different times,” he said, adding that he broke his arm trying to cling to Will. “And I don’t know when I actually lost him.”
He continued, “When you talk about ‘meant to be,’ I think I was supposed to be there with him. And witness that. He did so much for so many people in his lifetime.”
While Will is gone, Mark still feels him with him. “We had 18 wonderful years, and we know we’ll see him again, so we just get from here to there,” he said. “I like to think he is sitting in the car next to me sometimes.”
Twister: Caught in the Storm streams on Netflix.
